Researching professionals' workplace learning: the case of academics

PROPEL has set itself the thematic challenge of understanding the changing nature of professional learning. Many argue for practice-based and/or sociomaterial approaches – approaches which define professional learning as “participating wisely in situ … learning as attunement, response and even interruption” (Fenwick, 2015 in Scott and Hargreaves) rather than as preparation for and acquisition of knowledge and competency. However, as a community, we have yet to explore fully the methodological implications. What is the place of method? What part do organisational arrangements play in sociomaterial considerations? How can we understand learning?

Drawing on a project about how academic work and the complex relationships between discipline, department and university are enacted in practice, the paper discusses the challenge of research which is not based on individual cases or abstract institutions but seeks instead to explore learning and work at the meso-level. Taking the case of a specific academic meeting, we trace the various actors and attunements learnt (or not). We argue that much academic work is 'work about the work'. We conclude that this opens up new understandings of academic learning. This methodological approach also opens possibilities for learning to negotiate, respond to and even interrupt relations between discipline, department and institution.